Junior Tim Mahoney wins Denver Public Library Bookmark Contest.
artwork by Heather Larson
Thomas Jefferson High School Art Teacher Brook Stoyer has high hopes every year that a student of hers will be chosen to be one of the winning bookmark artists in a contest to create hand-designed bookmarks that encourages students to read. This year, one of the winners just so happens to be Junior Tim Mahoney, who created his bookmark with the current theme “Making Waves,” very clearly represented. “I had hopes that Mahoney would win,” Stoyer said smiling.
For the past ten years, students of ages 8-18 within the Denver area have been encouraged to jump on the bandwagon to create these bookmarks. This contest is held annually by the Denver Public Library, and every year multiple winners are chosen. The winning bookmarks are then published and printed thousands of times in order to circulate them throughout Denver schools, and within the Denver Public Libraries.
This year marks the fifth consecutive year in which TJ students have been chosen as the winners, and Mahoney says he feels very honored to have been put onto this sort of pedestal. “I feel great that I won, and I am excited to see my bookmark show up within the Libraries I visit, and even within the school library.”
Although Mahoney’s bookmark creation won the contest, that is not the only thing that he draws. “My main inspiration and motivation when drawing is just knowing that my art can make the world a more beautiful place.” Mahoney is a dedicated artist who spends his eighth hour every day in Stoyer’s room drawing and letting his mind ponder the inspirations all around him, but he also spends time outside of class increasing his skill levels and becoming an even better artist by drawing and creating beautiful art. Mahoney admits that one of his goals in life is one that many don’t have the opportunity to achieve. “I would love to create one of the murals on the side of a building one day. It would be awesome.”
With the winner having been chosen, and Mahoney very excited about his accomplishment, everyone can now look forward to seeing not just his winning bookmark, but other students’ work, as well. Along with TJ, schools across the Denver area compete for these winning positions, and there are also many honorable mentions. “There are always so many winners, but all I wanted was for some of the students at TJ be recognized for their talents and abilities, and for them to get the recognition they deserve. This was a difficult year as well, because we were primarily competing against DSA,” Stoyer said.
Bookmarks were not the only category in the competition, as there was also for a contest for the best poster, which is also trying to promote teen reading using the same theme as the bookmark. The winner of the poster contest was also TJ Spartan, Aspen Anderson. Honorable mentions for the poster contest were: Cassie Cherry, Daniel Mardirosian, and April Regas. Honorable mentions for the bookmarks include: Aspen Anderson, Maggie Barbour, Brandi Buscemi, Nico Camacho-Logan, Cassie Cherry, Katie Dehmlow, Lyndsey Gogue, Victor Hernandez, and Patricia Mrotel. The published bookmarks and posters should be released to all Denver Public Libraries within the next three months, and will be on display here: http://teens.denverlibrary.org/involved/view_links.html
